Posts Tagged ‘NA’

As covered in a recent press release, leading lithography OEM ASML invested EUR 1 billion in cash to buy 24.9% of ZEISS subsidiary Carl Zeiss SMT, and committed to spend EUR ~760 million over the next 6 years on capital expenditures and R&D of an entirely new high numerical aperture (NA) extreme ultra-violet (EUV) lithography tool. Targeting NA >0.5 to be able to print 8 nm half-pitch features, the planned tool will use anamorphic mirrors to reduce shadowing effects from nanometer-scale mask patterns. Clever design and engineering of the mirrors could allow this new NA >0.5 tool to be able to achieve wafer throughputs similar to ASML’s current generation of 0.33 NA tools for the same source power and resist speed.

The Numerical Aperture (NA) of an optical system is a dimensionless number that characterizes the range of angles over which the system can accept or emit light. Higher NA systems can resolve finer features by condensing light from a wider range of angles. Mirror surfaces to reflect EUV “light” are made from over 50 atomic-scale bi-layers of molybdenum (Mo) and silicon (Si), and increasing the width of mirrors to reach higher NA increases the angular spread of the light which results in shadows within patterns.

In the proceedings of last year’s European Mask and Lithography Conference, Zeiss researchers reported on “Anamorphic high NA optics enabling EUV lithography with sub 8 nm resolution” (doi:10.1117/12.2196393). The abstract summarizes the inherent challenges of establishing high NA EUVL technology:

For such a high-NA optics a configuration of 4x magnification, full field size of 26 x 33 mm² and 6’’ mask is not feasible anymore. The increased chief ray angle and higher NA at reticle lead to non-acceptable mask shadowing effects. These shadowing effects can only be controlled by increasing the magnification, hence reducing the system productivity or demanding larger mask sizes. We demonstrate that the best compromise in imaging, productivity and field split is a so-called anamorphic magnification and a half field of 26 x 16.5 mm² but utilizing existing 6’’ mask infrastructure.

Figure 1 shows that ASML plans to introduce such a system after the year 2020, with a throughput of 185 wafers-per-hour (wph) and with overlay of <2 nm. Hans Meiling, ASML vice president of product management EUV, in an exclusive interview with Solid State Technology explained why >0.5 NA capability will not be upgradable on 0.33 NA tools, “the >0.5NA optical path is larger and will require a new platform. The anamorphic imaging will also require stage architectural changes.”

Fig.1: EUVL stepper product plans for wafers per hour (WPH) and overlay accuracy include change from 0.33 NA to a new >0.5 NA platform. (Source: ASML)

Overlay of <2 nm will be critical when patterning 8nm half-pitch features, particularly when stitching lines together between half-fields patterned by single-exposures of EUV. Minimal overlay is also needed for EUV to be used to cut grid lines that are initially formed by pitch-splitting ArFi. In addition to the high NA set of mirrors, engineers will have to improve many parts of the stepper to be able to improve on the 3 nm overlay capability promised for the NXE:3400B 0.33 NA tool ASML plans to ship next year.

“Achieving better overlay requires improvements in wafer and reticle stages regardless of NA,” explained Meiling. “The optics are one of the many components that contribute to overlay. Compare to ArF immersion lithography, where the optics NA has been at 1.35 for several generations but platform improvements have provided significant overlay improvements.”

Manufacturing Capability Plans

Figure 2 shows that anamorphic systems require anamorphic masks, so moving from 0.33 to >0.5 NA requires re-designed masks. For relatively large chips, two adjacent exposures with two different anamorphic masks will be needed to pattern the same field area which could be imaged with lower resolution by a single 0.33 NA exposure. Obviously, such adjacent exposures of one layer must be properly “stitched” together by design, which is another constraint on electronic design automation (EDA) software.

Fig.2: Anamorphic >0.5 NA EUVL system planned by ASML and Zeiss will magnify mask images by 4x in the x-direction and 8x in the y-direction. (Source: Carl Zeiss SMT)

Though large chips will require twice as many half-field masks, use of anamorphic imaging somewhat reduces the challenges of mask-making. Meiling reminds us that, “With the anamorphic imaging, the 8X direction conditions will actually relax, while the 4X direction will require incremental improvements such as have always been required node-on-node.”

ASML and Zeiss report that ideal holes which “obscure” the centers of mirrors can surprisingly allow for increased transmission of EUV by each mirror, up to twice that of the “unobscured” mirrors in the 0.33 NA tool. The holes allow the mirrors to reflect through each-other, so they all line up and reflect better. Theoretically then each >0.5 NA half-field can be exposed twice as fast as a 0.33 NA full-field, though it seems that some system throughput loss will be inevitable. Twice the number of steps across the wafer will have to slow down throughput by some percent.

White two stitched side-by-side >0.5 NA EUVL exposures will be challenging, the generally known alternatives seem likely to provide only lower throughputs and lower yields:

* Double-exposure of full-field using 0.33 NA EUVL,

* Octuple-exposure of full-field using ArFi, or

* Quadruple-exposure of full-field using ArFi complemented by e-beam direct-writing (EbDW) or by directed self-assembly (DSA).

One ASML EUVL system for HVM is expected to cost ~US$100 million. As presented at the company’s October 31st Investor Day this year, ASML’s modeling indicates that a leading-edge logic fab running ~45k wafer starts per month (WSPM) would need to purchase 7-12 EUV systems to handle an anticipated 6-10 EUV layers within “7nm-node” designs. Assuming that each tool will cost >US$100 million, a leading logic fab would have to invest ~US$1 billion to be able to use EUV for critical lithography layers.

With near US$1 billion in capital investments needed to begin using EUVL, HVM fabs want to be able to get productive value out of the tools over more than a single IC product generation. If a logic fab invests US$1 billion to use 0.33 NA EUVL for the “7nm-node” there is risk that those tools will be unproductive for “5nm-node” designs expected a few years later. Some fabs may choose to push ArFi multi-patterning complemented by another lithography technology for a few years, and delay investment in EUVL until >0.5 NA tools become available.

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